Sundance 2024: Sundance Film Festival: The Community Absorbs You!

There are two reasons to be in this small, snowy mountain town called Park City, Utah, in January: skiing or the Sundance Film Festival. So while some are sliding down the Rocky Mountains, others are meeting downtownto watch and discuss new films. As soon as you arrive in the small town, you are overwhelmed by the enormous willingness of the people here to exchange ideas.

No matter whether in the cinemas, bus stops, supermarkets, cafés, shuttle buses or simply on the street: you are constantly being spoken to by other people. How you’re feeling today, where you want to go, what movies you’ve seen so far, how you found this or that film, whether you’re a filmmaker or a producer. No matter what kind of anti-social, grouchy person you are, after two days you’ll be surprised to see yourself saying “Hello!” or “Thank you!” to other people with a smile! And there’s a constant stream of thanks and apologies here: people walk past you on the street and apologize. Or thank you just because you asked how this or that works.

Sundance is not a festival where you just watch films and then disappear. The community absorbs you! Here there are not necessarily separate bubbles for the industry, the film market, the press and filmmakers, in contrast to the festivals in Cannes and Venice or the Berlinale. Instead, you can meet everyone everywhere. It’s quite possible that the woman you talked to on the shuttle bus will later turn out to be the director of one of the winning films. And it’s not uncommon for a producer or the filmmaker herself to draw your attention to her film in a bar.

Sundance does not have a red carpet and the awards ceremony takes place in the morning instead of in the evening. Glamor is not a key word at this festival. What counts here is the community. Hundreds from all over the United States have come here to volunteer at the festival. They work in the cloakroom, as ticket inspectors in the cinemas or stand at the bus stops in front of the event venues to help guests find their way. These people also give the festival a special charm.

But above all, Sundance is the meeting place for independent films, young artists and debutants. It is the place of the craziest and most innovative images and types of storytelling. This year the festival celebrated its 40th edition. Ten films competed in each of the four main competitions (US feature film, US documentary, world feature film and world documentary). 32 countries were represented. German filmmakers were also there. In the world documentary category, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck presented their new film “Eternal You,” which deals with digital life after death. The two were at Sundance for the second time. In 2018, they showed their debut documentary “The Cleaners” here about censorship in the digital space – about the people who decide what should and should not be deleted on social media. The German director Nora Fingscheidt was also there and showed her new work “The Outrun” in the “Premieres” section.

Even though many strong feature films premiered at Sundance this year, it was the documentaries at this festival that particularly stood out. And each story was fascinating in its own way: In the US documentary “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” a Russian couple climbs the highest skyscrapers in the world and risks their lives in the process. In “Agent of Happiness,” some representatives of the Bhutanese government go door to door to measure people’s happiness. “Never Look Away” follows the unconventional life of New Zealand CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth, who fearlessly filmed in war zones and was shot in the face while working in Sarajevo in 1992 (which she survived).

But the highlight of this year’s festival was the US documentary “Daughters” by director Natalie Rae and activist Angela Patton. This film is about a special program for incarcerated fathers in a Washington, DC, prison called “Father-Daughter Dance,” which allows inmates to spend a day with their daughters. Some of them haven’t seen their daughters for years, some have only been allowed to make phone calls. Some mothers have forbidden their daughters from even having contact with their criminal fathers in prison.

In the documentary, four girls and their imprisoned fathers prepare for this special day and their encounter with each other. Rae and Patton, who are committed to empowering Black girls, worked on this film project for eight years and accompanied the daughters and their families before the event, during and after. The dance program was a kind of turning point in the lives of some families, especially for some fathers it gave support. Some have since been released.

The girls, their mothers and two fathers, who are now at large, were also present at the film’s premiere in Park City. One of them said that he previously couldn’t even stay out of prison for more than 90 days. But since the “dance” it has now been six years in which he has not been imprisoned. The audience was beside themselves. »Daughters« received the Festival Favorite Award.